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Share in the accounts and discoveries of the many individuals who, just like you, set out to find new, true answers that could stand up to the test of passing time with its ever-changing conditions. Welcome these inward and uplifting thoughts as if they were your own, for in one sense… they are.
Every great mind seeks to labor for eternity. All men are captivated by immediate advantage; great minds alone are excited by the prospect of distant good.
Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth… and to the maximum of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same.
The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depends upon the future. We let go of the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance — and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to Godliness.
We can console ourselves for not having great talents as we console ourselves for not having great places. We can be above both in our hearts.
What greater pleasure is there than to find myself the one thing that I ought to be, and the whole thing that I ought to be?
Each heart is a world. You find all within yourself that you find without. The world that surrounds you is the magic glass of the world within you.
Like madness is the glory of this life.
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.
Put not yourself into amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known.
It is not enough to speak, but to speak true.
It is the prerogative of man’s spiritual nature that he can yield himself up to a thought and will that are infinitely larger than his own.
Our grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
The kingdom of Heaven is within you, and whosoever knoweth himself shall find it.
To pursue trifles is the lot of humanity; and whether we bustle in a pantomime or strut at a coronation, whether we shout at a bonfire or harangue in a senate-house — whatever object we follow, it will at last surely conduct us to futility and disappointment.
The Veil
My yearning has loosened
the veil hiding Beauty.
She is now mine — but alas,
My own sight is there blocking the view.
The beat of my own heart sounds in my ear.
The wish to live as others do has long been silenced.
What does their world have to offer?
Nothing but the echo of voices yelling, “more, more.”
It is not far, it is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know.
Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over. Nothing.
The Way that can be named is not the Way.
The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to try to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your hurts to your head or to your heart.
Why do you take by force what you could obtain by love?
All is whole;
Not one word more of the consumed time.
Let’s take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Steals ere we can effect them.
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
We speak of definite truth which you can know by experience.
